Criticism would doubtless ere this have demonstrated the meteoric career of Joan of Arc to be a myth, but for the concurrent testimony of friend and foe and the doc.u.mentary evidence, which enable us with reasonable certainty to separate its marvellous vicissitudes from the legendary details with which they have been obscured. For us her story has a special interest, as affording another ill.u.s.tration of the ease with which the inquisitorial process was employed for political ends.

In 1429 the French monarchy seemed doomed beyond hope of resuscitation.

In the fierce dissensions which marked the reign of the insane Charles VI. a generation had grown up in whom adherence to faction had replaced fidelity to the throne or to the nation; the loyalists were known not as partisans of Charles VII., but as Armagnacs, and the Burgundians welcomed the foreign domination of England as preferable to that of their hereditary sovereign. Paris, in spite of the fearful privations and losses entailed by the war, submitted cheerfully to the English through the love it bore to their ally, the Duke of Burgundy. Joan of Arc said that, in her native village, Domremy on the Lorraine border, there was but one Burgundian, and his head she wished were cut off; but Domremy and Vaucouleurs const.i.tuted the only Armagnac spot in northeastern France, and its boys used to have frequent fights with the Burgundian boys of Marey, from which they would be brought home wounded and bleeding. Such was the all-pervading bitterness of discord throughout the kingdom.[358]

Even the death of the brilliant Henry V., in 1423, had seemed to check in no degree the progress of the English arms. Under the able regency of his brother, the Duke of Bedford, seconded by such captains as Salisbury, Talbot, Scales, and Fastolf, the infant Henry VI. appeared destined to succeed to the throne of his grandfather, Charles VI., as provided in the treaty of Troyes. In 1424 the victory of Verneuil repeated the triumph of Agincourt. From Dauphine alone three hundred knights were left upon the field, and but for the fidelity of the provinces won by the Albigensian crusades, Charles VII. would already have been a king without a kingdom. Driven beyond the Loire, he was known by the nickname of the Roi de Bourges. Vacillating and irresolute, dominated by unworthy favorites, he hardly knew whether to retreat farther to the south and make a final stand among the mountains of Dauphine, or to seek a refuge in Spain or Scotland. In 1428 his last line of defence on the Loire was threatened by the leaguer of Orleans.

He was powerless to raise the siege, and for five months the heroic city resisted till, reduced to despair, it sent the renowned knight, Pothon de Xaintrallies to the Duke of Burgundy to ask him to accept its allegiance. The duke was nothing loath, but the acquisition required the a.s.sent of his English ally, and Bedford scornfully refused--he would not, he said, beat the bush for another to win the bird. Two months more of weary siege elapsed: as the spring of 1429 opened, further resistance seemed useless, and for Charles there appeared nothing left but ignominious retreat and eventual exile.[359]

Such was the hopeless condition of the French monarchy when the enthusiasm of Joan of Arc introduced a new factor in the tangled problem, kindling anew the courage which had been extinguished by an unbroken series of defeats, arousing the sense of loyalty which had been lost in faction, bringing religion as a stimulus to patriotism, and replacing despair with eager confidence and hopefulness. It has been given to few in the world"s history thus to influence the destiny of a nation, and perhaps to none so obscure and apparently so unfitted.[360]

Born January 6, 1484, in the little hamlet of Domremy, on the border line of Lorraine, she had but completed her seventeenth year when she confidently a.s.sumed the function of the saviour of her native land.[361]

Her parents, honest peasants, had given her such training as comported with her station; she could, of course, neither read nor write, but she could recite her Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Credo; she had herded the kine, and was a notable sempstress--on her trial she boasted that no maid or matron of Rouen could teach her anything with the needle. Thanks to her rustic employment she was tall and strong-limbed, active and enduring. It was said of her that she could pa.s.s six days and nights without taking off her harness, and marvellous stories were told of her abstinence from food while undergoing the most exhausting labor in battle and a.s.sault. Thus a strong physical const.i.tution was dominated by a still stronger and excitable nervous organization. Her resolute self-reliance was shown when she was sought in marriage by an honest citizen of Toul, whose suit her parents favored. Finding her obdurate, he had recourse, it would seem with her parents" consent, to the law, and cited her before the Official of Toul to fulfil the marriage promise which he alleged she had made to him. Notwithstanding her youth, Joan appeared undaunted before the court, swore that she had given no pledges, and was released from the too-ardent suitor. At the age of thirteen she commenced to have ecstasies and visions. The Archangel Michael appeared to her first, and he was followed by St. Catharine and St. Margaret, whom G.o.d had specially commissioned to watch over and guide her. Even the Archangel Gabriel sometimes came to counsel her, and she felt herself the instrument of the divine will, trans.m.u.ting by a subtle psychical alchemy her own impulses into commands from on high. At length she could summon her heavenly advisers at will and obtain from them instructions in any doubtful emergency. In her trial great stress was laid upon an ancient beech-tree, near Domremy, known as the Ladies"

Tree, or Fairies" Tree, from near the roots of which gushed forth a spring of miraculous healing virtue. A survival of tree and fountain worship was preserved in the annual dances and songs of the young girls of the village around the tree, and the garlands which they hung upon its boughs, but Joan, although she joined her comrades in these observances, usually reserved her garlands to decorate the shrine of the Virgin in the church hard by. Extreme religious sensibility was inseparable from such a character as hers, and almost at the first apparition of her celestial visitants she made a vow of virginity. She believed herself consecrated and set apart for some high and holy purpose, to which all earthly ties must be subordinate. When she related to her judges that her parents were almost crazed at her departure, she added that if she had had a hundred fathers and mothers she would have abandoned them to fulfil her mission. To this self-concentration, reflected in her bearing, is probably to be attributed the remark of several of her chroniclers, that no man could look upon her with a lascivious eye.[362]

At first her heavenly guides merely told her to conduct herself well and to frequent the church, but as she grew to understand the desperate condition of the monarchy and to share the fierce pa.s.sions of the time, it was natural that these purely moral instructions should change into commands to bear from G.o.d the message of deliverance to the despairing people. In her ecstasies she felt herself to be the chosen instrument, and at length her Voices, as she habitually called them, urged her several times a week to hasten to France and to raise the siege of Orleans. To her parents she feared to reveal her mission; some unguarded revelation they must have had, for, two years before her departure, her father, Jacques Darc, had dreams of her going off with the soldiers, and he told her brothers that if he thought that his dreams would come true he wished they would drown her, or he would do it himself. Thenceforth she was closely watched, but the urgency of her celestial counsellors grew into reproaches for her tardiness, and further delay was unendurable. Obtaining permission to visit her uncle, Denis Laxart, she persuaded him to communicate her secret to Robert de Baudricourt, who held for the king the neighboring castle of Vaucouleurs. Her Voices had predicted that she would be twice repulsed and would succeed the third time. It so turned out. The good knight, who at first contemptuously advised her uncle to box her ears, at length was persuaded to ask the king"s permission to send the girl to him. She must have acquired a reputation of inspiration, for while awaiting the response the Duke of Lorraine, who was sick, sent for her and she told him that if he wished a cure he must first reconcile himself with his wife. On the royal permission being accorded, de Baudricourt gave to her a man"s dress and a sword, with a slender escort of a knight and four men, and washed his hands of the affair.[363]

The little party started, February 13, 1429, on their perilous ride of a hundred and fifty leagues, in the depth of winter, through the enemy"s country. That they should accomplish it without misadventure in eleven days was in itself regarded as a miracle, and as manifesting the favor of G.o.d. On February 24 they reached Chinon, where Charles held his court, only to encounter new obstacles. It is true that some persons of sense, as we are told, recognized in her the fulfilment of Merlin"s prophecy, "_Descendet virgo dorsum sagittarii et flores virgineos obscurabit_;" others found her foretold by the Sibyl and by the Venerable Bede; others asked her whether there was not in her land a forest known as the Bois Chenu, for there was an ancient prediction that from the Bois Chenu there would come a wonder-working maiden--and they were delighted on learning that it lay but a league from her father"s house. Those, however, who relied on worldly wisdom shook their heads and p.r.o.nounced her mission an absurdity--in fact, it was charitable to regard her as insane. It shows, indeed, to what depth of despair the royal cause had fallen, that her pretensions were regarded as of sufficient importance to warrant investigation. Long were the debates.

Prelates and doctors of theology, jurists and statesmen examined her for a month, and one by one they were won over by her simple earnestness, her evident conviction, and the intelligence of her replies. This was not enough, however. In Poitiers sat Charles"s Parlement and a University composed of such schoolmen as had abandoned the anglicized University of Paris. Thither was Joan sent, and for three weeks more she was tormented with an endless repet.i.tion of questioning. Meanwhile her antecedents were carefully investigated, with a result in every way confirming her good repute and truthfulness. Charles was advised to ask of her a sign by which to prove that she came from G.o.d, but this she refused, saying that it was the divine command that she should give it before Orleans, and nowhere else. Finally, the official conclusion, cautiously expressed, was that in view of her honest life and conversation, and her promising a sign before Orleans, the king should not prevent her from going there, but should convey her there in safety; for to reject her without the appearance of evil would be to rebuff the Holy Ghost, and to render himself unworthy the grace and aid of G.o.d.[364]

Two months had been wasted in these preliminaries, and it was the end of April before the determination was reached. A convoy was in preparation to throw provisions into the town, and it was resolved that Joan should accompany it. Under instructions from her Voices she had a standard prepared, representing on a white field Christ holding the world, with an angel on each side--a standard which was ever in the front of battle, which was regarded as the surest guarantee of success, and which in the end was gravely investigated as a work of sorcery. She had a.s.signed to her a troop or guard, but does not seem to have been intrusted with any command, yet she a.s.sumed that she was taking the field as the representative of G.o.d, and must first give the enemy due notice of defiance. Accordingly, on April 18, she addressed four letters, one to Henry VI. and the others to the Regent Bedford, the captains before Orleans, and the English soldiers there, in which she demanded the surrender of the keys of all the cities held in France; she announced herself ready to make peace if they will abandon the land and make compensation for the damages inflicted, otherwise she is commissioned by G.o.d, and will drive them out with a shock of arms such as had not been seen in France for a thousand years. It is scarce to be wondered that these uncourtly epistles excited no little astonishment in the English camp. Rumors of her coming had spread; she was denounced as a sorceress, and all who placed faith in her as heretics. Talbot declared that he would burn her if she was captured, and the heralds who brought her letters were only saved from a similar fate by a determined threat of reprisals on the part of Dunois, then in command at Orleans.[365]

Some ten days later the convoy started under command of Gilles de Rais and the Marechal de Sainte-Severe. Joan had promised that it should meet with no opposition, and faith in her was greatly enhanced when her words proved true. Although it pa.s.sed within one or two bow-shots of the English siege-works, and though there was considerable delay in ferrying the cattle and provisions across the Loire into the city, not an attempt at interference was made. The same occurred with a second convoy which reached Orleans May 4, to the surprise of the French and the disgust of the Parisians, who watched the affair from a distance, and were unable to understand the paralysis which seemed to have fallen on the English arms. Joan had impatiently awaited these last reinforcements, and urged immediate offensive measures against the besiegers. Without consulting her, on the same day an a.s.sault was made on one of the English works on the other side of the Loire. Her legend relates that she started up from slumber exclaiming that her people were being slaughtered, and, scarcely waiting for her armor to be adjusted, sprang on her horse and galloped to the gate leading to the scene of action. The attack had miscarried, but after her arrival on the scene not an Englishman could wound a Frenchman, and the _bastille_ was carried. Hot fighting occurred on the following days. On the 6th she was wounded in the foot by a caltrop, and on the 7th in the shoulder by an arrow, but in spite of desperate resistance all the English works on the farther bank of the Loire were taken, and their garrisons slain or captured. The English loss was estimated at from six thousand to eight thousand men, while that of the French was not over one hundred. On the 8th the English abandoned the siege, marching off in such haste that they left behind them their sick and wounded, their artillery and magazines. The French, flushed with victory, were eager to attack them, but Joan forbade it--"Let them go; it is not the will of Messire that they should be fought to-day; you will have them another time"--and by this time her moral ascendency was such that she was obeyed. So marvellous was the change in the spirit of the opposing forces, that it was a common remark that before her coming two hundred English would rout five hundred Frenchmen, but that afterwards two hundred French would chase four hundred English. Even the unfriendly Monstrelet admits that after the raising of the siege of Orleans there was no captain who so filled the mouths of men as she, though she was accompanied by knights so renowned as Dunois, La Hire, and Pothon de Xaintrailles. The Regent Bedford, in writing to the English council, could only describe it as a terrible blow from the divine hand, especially "caused of unleyefulle doubte that thei hadde of a Desciple and Lyme of the Feende called the Pucelle that used fals Enchauntements and Sorcerie." Not only, he says, were the English forces diminished in number and broken in spirit, but the enemy was encouraged to make great levies of troops.[366]

In the chronic exhaustion of the royal treasury it was not easy for Charles to take full advantage of this unexpected success, but the spirit of the nation was aroused and a force could be kept spasmodically in the field. D"Alencon was sent with troops to clear the Loire valley of the enemy, and took Joan with him. Suffolk had fortified himself in Jargeau, but the place was carried by a.s.sault and he was captured with all his men who were not slain. Then want of money caused a return to Tours, where Joan earnestly urged Charles to go to Reims for his coronation: she had always claimed that her mission was to deliver Orleans and to crown the king; that her time was short and that the counsel of her Voices must not be disregarded, but prudence prevailed, and it was felt that the English power in the central provinces must first be crushed. A second expedition was organized. Beaugency was besieged and taken, and on June 18 the battle of Patay gave some slight amends for Agincourt and Verneuil. After feeble resistance the English fled. Twenty-five hundred of them were left upon the field, and large numbers were captured, including Talbot, Scales, and others of note.

Thus in little more than six weeks all the leading English captains were slain or in captivity, except Fastolf, whose flight from Patay Bedford avenged by tearing from him the Order of the Garter. Their troops were dispersed and dispirited, their prestige was gone. It was no wonder that in all this one side recognized the hand of G.o.d and the other that of the devil. Even the Norman chronicler, P. Cochon, says that the English would have abandoned France if the regent would have allowed it, and that they were so dispirited that one Frenchman would chase three of them.[367]

A letter written from the court of Charles VII. to the Duke of Milan three days after the triumph of Patay, recounting the marvels of the previous weeks, shows how Joan was regarded and how rapidly her legend was growing. At her birth the villagers of Domremy were joyously excited, they knew not why, and the c.o.c.ks for two hours flapped their wings and uttered a song wholly different from their ordinary crowing.

Her visions were described in the most exaggerated terms, as well as her personal prowess and endurance. The relief of Orleans, the capture of Jargeau, Mehun-sur-Loire, and Beaugency, and the crowning mercy of Patay were all attributed to her: hers was the initiative, the leadership, and the success; no one else is alluded to. We are told, moreover, that she was already predicting the deliverance of Charles of Orleans, a prisoner in England for fifteen years, and had sent a notice to the English to surrender him.[368]

It could no longer be doubted that Joan was under the direct inspiration of G.o.d, and when at Gien, on June 25, there was a consultation as to the next movement, though Charles"s councillors advised him to reduce La Charite and clear the Orleannais and Berri of the enemy, it is no wonder that he yielded to Joan"s urgency and gave his a.s.sent to a march to Reims. The enterprise seemed a desperate one, for it lay through a hostile country with strong cities along the road, and the royal resources were inadequate to equipping and provisioning an army or providing it with siege-trains. But enthusiasm was rising to fever heat, and human prudence was distrust of G.o.d. Volunteers came pouring in as soon as the king"s intentions were noised abroad, and gentlemen too poor to arm and mount themselves were content to serve as simple archers and retainers. La Tremouille, the royal favorite, thinking his own position endangered, caused the services of mult.i.tudes to be rejected, but for which, it was said, an army sufficient to drive the English from France could readily have been collected. On went the ill-conditioned forces. Auxerre, though not garrisoned, refused to open its gates, but gave some provisions, and in spite of Joan"s desire to take it by a.s.sault the king went forward, induced, it was said, by La Tremouille, who had received from the town a bribe of two thousand livres. At Troyes there was a strong English and Burgundian garrison; it could not be left behind, and the army encamped before it for five or six days, with no artillery to breach its walls. There was neither money nor victual, and the only subsistence was ears of corn and beans plucked in the fields.

The situation was discouraging, and a council of war under the impulse of the Chancellor Renaud de Chartres, Archbishop of Reims, advised retreat. Joan was sent for and declared that within two days the town would surrender. She was given the time she asked, and at once proceeded to gather material to fill the trenches, and to mount some small culverins. A panic seized the inhabitants and they demanded to surrender; the garrison was allowed to march out, and the city returned to its allegiance.[369]

When Joan entered the town she was met by a Frere Richard, whom the people had sent to examine her and report what she was. The worthy friar, doubtful whether she was of heaven or h.e.l.l, approached her cautiously, sprinkling holy water and making the sign of the cross, till she smiled and told him to come boldly on, as she was not going to fly away. This Frere Richard was a noted Franciscan preacher who had recently returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and in April had made the deepest impression on Paris with his eloquence. From April 16th to the 26th he had preached daily to audiences of five and six thousand souls, and had excited such a tempest of emotion that on one day a hundred bonfires were built in the streets into which men threw their cards and dice and tables, and women their ornaments and frippery. Over this man Joan obtained so complete a mastery that he devoted himself to her and followed her in her campaigns, using his eloquence to convert the people, not from their sins, but from their disloyalty to Charles.

When the good Parisians heard of this they resumed their cards and dice to spite him. Even a tin medal with the name of Jesus which he had given them to wear was cast aside for the red cross of Burgundy. In the pa.s.sion of the hour on both sides religion was but the handmaid of partisanship.[370]

After this the march to Reims was a triumphant progress.

Chalons-sur-Marne sent half a day"s journey in advance to submit and took the oath of allegiance. At Septsaux the garrison fled and the people welcomed their king, while the Dukes of Lorraine and Bar came to join him with a heavy force. Reims was held for Burgundy by the Seigneur de Saveuse, one of the doughtiest warriors of the day, but the citizens were so frightened by the coming of the Pucelle, whose reported wonders had impressed their imaginations, that they declared for Charles, and Saveuse was obliged to fly. Charles entered the town on July 16, and was joyfully received. The next day, Sunday, July 17, he was crowned King of France. During the ceremony Joan stood by the altar with the standard: her judges on her trial seemed to imagine that she held it there for some occult influence which it was supposed to exercise, and inquired curiously as to her motive; when she answered simply, "It had been in the strife, it had a right to be in the honor."[371]

Joan might well claim that her mission was accomplished. In little more than three months she had made the intending fugitive of Chinon a conquering king, to whom his flatterers gave the t.i.tle of the Victorious. A few months more of such success would establish him firmly on the throne of a reunited France, and no one could doubt that success would grow more rapid if only with its own momentum. Negotiations were on foot with the Duke of Burgundy, which were expected to result in detaching him from the English cause. Joan had written to him some weeks earlier asking him to be present at the coronation, and on the day of the ceremony she addressed him another letter, summoning and entreating him to return to his allegiance. In a few days Beauvais, Senlis, Laon, Soissons, Chateau-Thierry, Provins, Compiegne, and other places acknowledged Charles as king and received his garrisons. There was universal exultation and a contagious delirium of returning loyalty.

As he marched the peasantry would gather with tears in their eyes to bless him, and thank G.o.d that peace was at hand. All men admitted that this was Joan"s work. Christine de Pisan, in a poem written about this time, compares her to Esther, Judith, Deborah, Gideon, and Joshua, and even Moses is not her superior. A litany of the period contains a prayer recognizing that G.o.d had delivered France by her hand. A Burgundian chronicler tells us that the belief was general among the French soldiery that she was an envoy of G.o.d who could expel the English; even after the enthusiasm of the time had pa.s.sed away Thoma.s.sin, who wrote officially in a work addressed to Louis XI., does not hesitate to say that of all the signs of love manifested by G.o.d to France, there has not been one so great or so marvellous as this Pucelle--to her was due the restoration of the kingdom, which was so low that it would have reached its end but for her coming. That she was regarded as an oracle of G.o.d on other subjects is seen in the application to her by the Comte d"Armagnac to tell him which of the three popes to believe in; and her acceptance of the position is shown by her answer, that when she is relieved from the pressure of the war she will resolve his doubts by the counsel of the King of all the world. If on the one hand her dizzy elevation turned her head to the extent of addressing threatening letters to the Hussites, on the other she never lost her kindly sympathy with the poor and humble; she protected them as far as she could from the horrors of war, comforted and supported them, and their grateful veneration shown in kissing her hands and feet and garments was made a crime to her by her pitiless judges.[372]

With all this it does not seem that Joan had any definite rank or command in the royal armies. Christine de Pisan, it is true, speaks of her as being the recognized chief--

"Et de nos gens preux et habiles Est princ.i.p.ale chevetaine"--

but it does not appear that her position had any other warrant than the moral influence which her prodigious exploits and the belief in her divine mission afforded. Charles"s grat.i.tude gave her a handsome establishment. She was magnificently attired, n.o.ble damsels were a.s.signed to her service, with a _maitre d"hotel_, pages, and valets; she had five war-horses, with seven or more roadsters, and at the time of her capture she had in her hands ten or twelve thousand francs, which, as she told her judges, was little enough to carry on war with. Shortly after his coronation, Charles, at her request, granted to Domremy and Greux the privilege of exemption from all taxes, a favor which was respected until the Revolution; and in December, 1429, he spontaneously enn.o.bled her family and all their posterity, giving them as arms on a field azure two _fleurs-de-lis or_, traversed by a sword, and authorizing them to bear the name of Du Lis--in all a slender return for the priceless service rendered, and affording to her judges another count in the indictment on her trial.[373]

All Europe was aroused with so portentous an apparition. It was not only statesmen and warriors that watched with astonishment the strange vicissitudes of the contest, but learned men and theologians were divided in opinion as to whether she was under the influence of heavenly or of infernal spirits, and were everywhere disputing and writing tracts to uphold the one opinion or the other. In England, of course, there was no dissent from the popular belief which Shakespeare puts in the mouth of Talbot--

"A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal, Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists."

So general, indeed, was the terror that she excited that when, in May, 1430, it was proposed to send Henry VI. to Paris for coronation, both captains and soldiers in the levies appointed for his escort deserted and lay in hiding; and when, in December, after Joan lay a prisoner in Rouen Castle and the voyage was performed, the same trouble was experienced, requiring another proclamation to the sheriffs for the arrest of those who were daily deserting, to the great peril of the royal person and of the kingdom of France. Elsewhere the matter was not thus taken for granted, and was elaborately argued with all the resources of scholastic logic. Some tracts of this character attributed to Gerson have been preserved, and exhibit to us the nature of the doubts which suggested themselves to the learned of the time--whether Joan is a woman or a phantasm; whether her acts are to be considered as divine or phitonic and illusory; whether, if they are the result of supernatural causes, they come from good or evil spirits. To Joan"s defenders the main difficulty was her wearing male attire and cutting her hair short--an offence which in the end proved to be the most tangible one to justify her condemnation. Even her advocates in the schools felt that in this the case was weak. It had to be admitted that the Old Law prohibits a woman from wearing man"s garments, but this, it was argued, was purely juridical, and was not binding under the New Law; it had merely a moral object, to prevent indecency, and the circ.u.mstances and objects were to be considered, so that the law could not be held to prohibit manly and military vesture to Joan, who was both manly and military. The cutting of her hair, prohibited by the Apostle, was justified in the same manner.[374]

For a few weeks after the coronation Joan was at the culmination of her career. An uninterrupted tide of success had demonstrated the reality of her divine mission. She had saved the monarchy, and no one could doubt that the invader would shortly be expelled from France. Possibly she may, as has been represented, have declared that all which G.o.d had appointed her to do had been accomplished, and that she desired to return to her parents and herd their cattle as she had been accustomed of old. In view of what followed, this was the only way to uphold the theory of divine inspiration, and such a statement inevitably formed part of her legend, whether it was true or not. In her subsequent failures, as at Paris and La Charite, Joan naturally persuaded herself that they had been undertaken against the counsel of her Voices, but all the evidence goes to prove that at the time she was as confident of success as ever. Thus a letter written from Reims on the day of coronation, evidently by a well-informed person, states that the army was to start the next day for Paris, and that the Pucelle had no doubts as to her reducing it to obedience. Nor did she really consider her mission as ended, for she had at the commencement proclaimed the liberation of Charles of Orleans as one of her objects, and on her trial she explained that she proposed either to invade England to set him free or to capture enough prisoners to force an exchange: her Voices had promised it to her, and had she not been captured she would have accomplished it in three years.[375]

Be this as it may, from this time the marvellous fortune which had attended her disappears; alternations of success and defeat show that either the French had lost the first flush of confident enthusiasm, or that the English had recovered from their panic and were doggedly resolved to fight the powers of h.e.l.l. Bedford managed to put a respectable force in the field, with the a.s.sistance of Cardinal Beaufort, who made over to him, it was said for a heavy bribe, four thousand crusaders whom he was leading from England to the Hussite wars.

He barred the way to Paris, and three times the opposing armies, of nearly equal strength, lay face to face, but Bedford always skilfully chose a strong position which Charles dared not attack, showing that human prudence had replaced the reckless confidence of the march to Reims. We catch a glimpse of the intrigues of the factions surrounding Charles in the attempted retreat to the Loire, frustrated at Bray-sur-Seine, when the defeat of the courtiers who a.s.sailed the English guarding the pa.s.sage of the river was hailed with delight by Joan, Bourbon, Alencon, and the party opposed to La Tremouille. Charles, perforce, remained in the North. Towards the end of August, Bedford, fearing an inroad on Normandy, marched thither, leaving the road to Paris open, and Charles advanced to St. Denis, which he occupied without resistance, August 25. On September 7 an attempt was made to capture Paris by surprise, with the aid of friends within the walls, and this failing, on the 8th, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, an a.s.sault in force was made at the Porte St. Honore. The water in the inner moat, however, was too deep and the artillery on the walls too well served: after five or six hours of desperate fighting the a.s.sailants were disastrously repulsed with a loss of five hundred killed and one thousand wounded. As usual Joan had been at the front till she fell with an arrow through the leg, and her standard-bearer was slain by her side.

Joan subsequently averred that she had had no counsel from her Voices to make this attempt, but had been over-persuaded by the eager chivalry of the army; but this is contradicted by contemporary evidence, and her letter to d"Armagnac promises him a reply when she shall have leisure in Paris, showing that she fully expected to capture the city.[376]

From this time her checkered career was rather of evil fortune than of good. If at St. Pierre-les-Moustiers the old enthusiasm made the forlorn hope imagine that it ascended the breach as easily as a broad stairway, the siege of La Charite, to which it was a preliminary, proved disastrous, and again Joan averred that she had undertaken this without orders from her Voices. It was freely said that La Tremouille had sent her on the enterprise with insufficient forces and had withheld the requisite succors. During the winter she was at Lagny, where occurred a little incident which was subsequently used to confirm the charge of sorcery. A child was born apparently dead; the parents, dreading to have it buried without baptism, had it carried to the church, where it lay, to all appearance, lifeless for three days; the young girls of the town a.s.sembled in the church to pray for it, and Joan joined them. Suddenly the infant gave signs of life, gaped thrice, was hurriedly baptized, died, and was buried in consecrated ground, and Joan had the credit of working a miracle, to be turned subsequently to her disadvantage.

Probably about the same time, there was trouble about a horse of the Bishop of Senlis, which Joan took for her own use. She found it worthless for her purposes and sent it back to him, and also caused him to be paid two hundred saluts d"or for it (the salut d"or was equivalent to twenty-two sols parisis), but on her trial the matter was gravely charged against her, showing how eagerly every incident in her career was scrutinized and utilized.[377]

As the spring of 1430 opened, the Duke of Burgundy came to the a.s.sistance of his English allies by raising a large army for the recovery of Compiegne. The activity of Joan was unabated. During Easter week, about the middle of April, we hear of her in the trenches at Melun, where her Voices announced to her that she would be a prisoner before St. John"s day, but would give her no further particulars. Before the close of the month she attacked the advancing Burgundians at Pont-l"eveque, with her old comrade-in-arms Pothon de Xaintrailles, and was worsted. Then she had a desperate fight with a Burgundian partisan, Franquet d"Arras, whom she captured with all his troop; he had been a notorious plunderer, the magistrates of Lagny claimed him for trial, and after an investigation which lasted for fifteen days they executed him as a robber and murderer, for which Joan was held responsible, his death being one of the most serious charges pressed against her. About May 1 Compiegne was invested. Its siege was evidently to be the decisive event of the campaign, and Joan hastened to the rescue. Before daylight on the morning of the 5th she succeeded in entering the town with reinforcements. In the afternoon of the same day a sally was resolved upon, and Joan as usual led it, with Pothon and other captains by her side. She fell upon the camp of a renowned knight of the Golden Fleece named Bauldon de Noyelle, who, though taken by surprise, made a gallant resistance. From the neighboring lines troops hastened to his a.s.sistance, and the tide of battle swayed back and forth. A force of a thousand Englishmen on their way to Paris had tarried to aid Philip of Burgundy, and these were brought up between the French and the town to take them in the rear. Joan fell back and endeavored to bring her men off in safety, but while covering the retreat she was unable to regain the fortifications, and was taken prisoner by the Batard de Vendome, a follower of Jean de Luxembourg, Comte de Ligny, second in command to the duke. There was naturally talk of treachery, but it would seem without foundation.. Pothon was likewise captured, and it evidently was but the fortune of war.[378]

Great was the joy in the Burgundian camp when the news spread that the dreaded Pucelle was a prisoner. English and Burgundians gave themselves up to rejoicing, for, as the Burgundian Monstrelet, who was present, informs us, they valued her capture more than five hundred fighting men, for there was no captain or chief of whom they were so afraid. They crowded around her quarters at Marigny, and even the Duke of Burgundy himself paid her a visit and exchanged some words with her. At once the question arose as to her possession. She was a prisoner of war, belonging to Jean de Luxembourg, and, in those days of ransoming, prisoners were valuable property. Under existing customs, Henry VI., as chief of the alliance, had the right to claim the transfer of any captured commanding general or prince on paying the captor ten thousand livres--a sort of eminent domain, for in the wars of Edward III.

Bertrand du Guesclin had been held at a ransom of one hundred thousand livres, the Constable de Clisson at the same, and in 1429 it had cost the Duc d"Alencon two hundred thousand crowns to effect his liberation from the English. In the exhausted state of the English exchequer, however, even ten thousand livres was a sum not readily procurable. It was a matter of absolute necessity to the English to have her, not only to prevent her ransom by the French, but to neutralize her sorceries by condemning and executing her under the jurisdiction of the Church. To accomplish this the Inquisition was the most available instrumentality: inside the English lines Joan was publicly reported to be a sorceress, and as such was judiciable by the Inquisition, which therefore had a right to claim her for trial. Accordingly, but a few days had elapsed after her capture when Martin Billon, Vicar of the Inquisitor of France, formally demanded her surrender, and the University of Paris addressed two letters to the Duke of Burgundy urging that she should be promptly tried and punished, lest his enemies should effect her deliverance. We have seen how by this time the importance of the Inquisition in France had shrunken, and Jean de Luxembourg was by no means disposed to surrender his valuable prize without consideration. Then another device was adopted. Compiegne, where Joan was captured, was in the diocese of Beauvais. Pierre Cauchon, the Count-bishop of Beauvais, though a Frenchman of the Remois, was a bitter English partisan, whose unscrupulous cruelty at a later period excited the cordial detestation even of his own faction. He had been driven from his see the previous year by the returning loyalty of its people under the impulse given by Joan, and may be a.s.sumed to have looked upon her with no loving eye. He was told to claim her for trial under his episcopal jurisdiction, but even he shrank from the odious business, and refused unless it could be proved that it was his duty. Possibly the promise of the reversion of the bishopric of Lisieux, with which he was subsequently rewarded, may have a.s.sisted in convincing him, while the authority of the University of Paris was invoked to quiet his scruples. July 14, the University addressed letters to Jean de Luxembourg reminding him that his oath of knighthood required him to defend the honor of G.o.d and the Catholic faith, and the holy Church. Through Joan, idolatries, errors, false doctrines, and evils innumerable had spread through France, and the matter admitted of no delay. The Inquisition had earnestly demanded her for trial, and Jean was urgently begged to surrender her to the Bishop of Beauvais, who had likewise claimed her; all inquisitor-prelates are judges of the faith, and all Christians of every degree are bound to obey them under the heavy penalties of the law, while obedience will acquire for him the divine grace and love, and will aid in the exaltation of the faith. When furnished with this, Pierre Cauchon lost no time. He left Paris at once with a notary and a representative of the University, and on the 16th presented it to the Duke of Burgundy in the camp before Compiegne, together with a summons of his own addressed to the Duke, Jean de Luxembourg, and the Batard de Vendome, demanding the surrender of Joan for trial before him on charges of sorcery, idolatry, invocation of the devil, and other matters involving the faith--trial which he is ready to hold, with the a.s.sistance of the inquisitor and of doctors of theology, for the exaltation of the faith and the edification of those who have been misled by her. He further offered a ransom of six thousand livres and a pension to the Batard de Vendome of two or three hundred livres, and if this was not enough the sum would be increased to ten thousand livres, although Joan was not so great a person as the king would have a right to claim on giving that amount; if required, security would be furnished for the payment. These letters the duke transferred to Jean de Luxembourg, who after some discussion agreed to sell her for the stipulated sum. He would not trust his allies, however, even with security, and refused to deliver his prisoner until the money was paid.

Bedford was obliged to convene the states of Normandy and levy a special tax to raise it, and it was not till October 20 that Jean received his price and transferred his captive.[379]

During all this long delay Charles, to his eternal dishonor, made no effort to save the woman to whom he owed his crown. While her prolonged trial was under way he did not even appeal to Eugenius IV. or to the Council of Basle to evoke the case to their tribunal, an appeal which would hardly have been rejected in a matter of so much interest. It is true that her recent labors had not been so brilliantly successful as those of the earlier period: he may have recognized that after all she was but human; or he may have satisfied his conscience with the reflection that if she were an envoy of G.o.d, G.o.d might be trusted to extricate her. Besides, the party of peace in his court, headed by La Tremouille, the favorite, had no desire to see the heroine at large again, and the weak and self-indulgent monarch abandoned her to her fate as, twenty years later, he abandoned Jacques Cur.

Meanwhile Joan had been carried, strictly guarded to prevent her escape by magic arts, from Marigny to the Castle of Beaulieu, and thence to the Castle of Beaurevoir. In the latter prison she excited the interest of the Dame de Beaurevoir, and of the Demoiselle de Luxembourg, aunt of Jean. The latter earnestly remonstrated with her nephew when she learned that he was treating with the English, and both ladies endeavored to persuade Joan to adopt female habiliments. They must have impressed her with their kindness, for she subsequently declared that she would have made the change for them rather than for any other ladies in France. Her restless energy chafed at the long captivity, and twice she made attempts to escape. Once she succeeded in shutting her guards up in her cell, and would have got off but that her jailer saw her and secured her. Again, when she heard that she was to be surrendered to the English, she despairingly threw herself from her lofty tower into the ditch, careless whether it would kill her or not. Her Voices had forbidden the attempt, but she said that she had rather die than fall into English hands--and this was subsequently charged against her as an attempted suicide and a crime. She was picked up for dead, but she was reserved for a harsher fate and speedily recovered. She might well regret the recovery when she was carried to Rouen, loaded with chains and confined in a narrow cell where brutal guards watched her day and night. It is even said that an iron cage was made, into which she was thrust with fetters on wrist, waist, and ankles. She had been delivered to the Church, not to the secular authorities; she was ent.i.tled to be kept in an ecclesiastical prison, but the English had paid for her and would listen to no reclamations. Warwick had charge of her and would trust her to no one.[380]

Pierre Cauchon still was in no haste to commence the iniquitous work which he had undertaken. After a month had pa.s.sed, Paris grew excited at the delay. The city, so ardently Anglicized, had a special grudge against Joan, not only on account of believing that she had promised her soldiers on the day of a.s.sault to allow them to sack the city and put the inhabitants to the sword, but because they were exposed to the greatest privations by the virtual blockade resulting from the extension of the royal domination caused by her successes. This feeling found expression in the University, which from the first pursued her with unrelenting ferocity. Not content with having intervened to procure her surrender to the English, it addressed letters, November 21, to Pierre Cauchon, reproaching him with his tardiness in commencing the process, and to the King of England, asking that the trial be held in Paris, where there are so many learned and excellent doctors. Still Cauchon hesitated. Doubtless when he came to consider the evidence on which he would have to act he recognized, as irresponsible partisans could not, how flimsy it was, and he was busy in obtaining information as to all the points in her career--for the interrogatories showed a marvellous familiarity with everything that could possibly be wrested against her.

Besides, there were indispensable preliminaries to be observed. His jurisdiction arose from her capture in his diocese, but he was an exile from it, and was expected to try her not only in another diocese, but in another province. The archbishopric of Rouen was vacant, and he adopted the expedient of requesting of the chapter permission to hold an ecclesiastical court within their jurisdiction. The request was granted, and he selected an a.s.sembly of experts to sit with him as a.s.sessors. A number came willingly from the University, whose expenses were paid by the English government, but it was more difficult to find accomplices among the local prelates and doctors. In one of the early sessions, Nicholas de Houppeland plainly told Cauchon that neither he nor the rest, belonging to the party hostile to Joan, could sit as judges, especially as she had already been examined by the Archbishop of Reims, who was the metropolitan of Beauvais. For this Nicholas was imprisoned in the Castle of Rouen, and was threatened with banishment to England and with drowning, but his friends eventually procured his liberation.

Undoubtedly every man who sat on the tribunal had the conviction that any leaning to the accused would expose him to English vengeance, and it was found necessary to impose a fine on any one who should absent himself from a single session. Eventually a respectable body of fifty or sixty theologians and jurists was got together, including such men as the Abbots of Fecamp, Jumieges, Ste. Catharine, Cormeilles, and Preaux, the Prior of Longueville, the archdeacon and treasurer of Rouen, and other men of recognized position. On January 3, 1431, royal letters-patent were issued ordering Joan to be delivered to Pierre Cauchon whenever she was wanted for examination, and all officials to aid him when called upon. As though she were already convicted, the letters recited the heresies and evil deeds of the culprit, and significantly concluded with a clause that if she was acquitted she was not to be liberated, but to be returned to the custody of the king. Yet it was not until the 9th that Cauchon a.s.sembled his experts, at that time eight in number, and laid before them what had been already done.

They decided that the informations were insufficient and that a further inquest was necessary, and they also protested ineffectually against Joan"s detention in a state prison. Measures were at once taken to make the investigations required. Nicholas Bailly was despatched to obtain the details of Joan"s childhood, and as he brought back only favorable details Cauchon suppressed his report and refused to reimburse his expenses. The inquisitorial method of making the accused betray herself was adopted. One of the a.s.sessors, Nicholas l"Oyseleur, disguised himself as a layman and was introduced into her cell, pretending to be a Lorrainer imprisoned for his loyalty. He gained her confidence, and she grew into the habit of talking to him without reserve. Then Warwick and Cauchon with two notaries ensconced themselves in an adjoining cell of which the part.i.tion wall had been pierced, while l"Oyseleur led her on to talk about her visions; but the scheme failed, for one of the notaries, unfamiliar with inquisitorial practice, p.r.o.nounced the whole proceeding to be unlawful, and courageously refused to act. Then Jean Estivet, the prosecutor and canon of Beauvais, tried the same expedient, but without success.[381]

It was not until February 19 that the articles of accusation were ready for submission to the a.s.sessors, and then a new difficulty arose. Thus far the tribunal had contained no representative of the Inquisition, and this was recognized as a fatal defect. Frere Jean Graveran was Inquisitor of France, and had appointed Frere Jean le Maitre, in 1424, as his vicar or deputy for Rouen. Le Maitre seems to have had no stomach for the work, and to have kept aloof, but he was not to be let off, and at the meeting of February 19 it was resolved to summon him, in the presence of two notaries, to take part in the proceedings and to hear read the accusation and the depositions of witnesses. Threats are said to have been freely employed, and his repugnance was overcome. Another session was held in the afternoon, at which he appeared, and on being summoned to act professed himself willing to do so, if the commission which he held was sufficient authorization. The scruple which he alleged was ingenious. He was Inquisitor of Rouen, but Cauchon was bishop in a different province, and, as he was exercising jurisdiction belonging to Beauvais in the "borrowed territory," le Maitre doubted his powers to take part in it. It was not till the 22d that his doubts were overcome, and, while awaiting enlarged powers from Graveran, he consented to a.s.sist, for the discharge of his conscience and to prevent the whole proceedings from being null and void, which by common consent seems to have been a.s.sumed would be the case if carried on without the partic.i.p.ation of the Inquisition. It was not until March 12 that he received a special commission from Graveran, who declined to come personally, after which he presided in conjunction with Cauchon; sentence was rendered in their joint names, and he was duly paid by the English for his services.[382]

At length, on February 21, Jean Estivet, the prosecutor, demanded that the prisoner be produced and examined. Before she was introduced Cauchon explained that she had earnestly begged the privilege of hearing ma.s.s, but, in view of the crimes whereof she was accused and her wearing male attire, he had refused. This prejudgment of the case was acquiesced in, and Joan was brought in with fetters on her legs. Of this cruelty she complained bitterly. Even the Templars, as we have seen, had their irons removed before examination, but Joan was only nominally in the hands of the court, and Cauchon accepted the responsibility for the outrage by telling her that it was because she had repeatedly tried to escape, to which she replied that she had a right to do so, as she had never given her parole. Then Cauchon called up the English guard who accompanied her and went through the farce of swearing them to watch her strictly--apparently for the futile purpose of a.s.serting some control over them.[383]

It would be superfluous to follow in detail the examinations to which she was subjected during the next three months, with an intermission from April 18 to May 11 on account of sickness which nearly proved mortal. The untaught peasant girl, enfeebled by the miseries of her cruel prison, and subjected day after day to the shrewd and searching cross-questions of the trained and subtle intellects of her carefully selected judges, never lost her presence of mind or clearness of intellect. Ingenious pitfalls were constructed for her, which she evaded almost by instinct. Questions puzzling to a theologian of the schools were showered upon her; half a dozen eager disputants would a.s.sail her at once and would interrupt her replies; the disorder at times was so great that the notaries finally declared themselves unable to make an intelligent record. Her responses would be carefully scrutinized, and she would be recalled in the afternoon, the same ground would be gone over in a different manner, and her pursuers would again be foiled. In the whole series of interrogatories she manifested a marvellous combination of frank simplicity, shrewdness, presence of mind, and firmness that would do honor to a veteran diplomat. She utterly refused to take an unconditional oath to answer the questions put to her, saying, frankly, "I do not know what you will ask me; perhaps it may be about things which I will not tell you:" she agreed to reply to all questions about her faith and matters bearing upon her trial, but to nothing else. When Cauchon"s eagerness over-stepped the limit she would turn on him and warn him, "You call yourself my judge: I know not if you are, but take care not to judge wrongfully, for you expose yourself to great danger, and I warn you, so that if our Lord chastises you I shall have done my duty." When asked whether St. Michael was naked when he visited her, she retorted, "Do you think the Lord has not wherewith to clothe his angels?" When describing a conversation with St. Catharine about the result of the siege of Compiegne, some chance expression led her examiner to imagine that he could entrap her, and he interrupted with the question whether she had said, "Will G.o.d so wickedly let the good folks of Compiegne perish?" but she composedly corrected him by repeating, "What! will G.o.d let these good folks of Compiegne perish, who have been and are so loyal to their lord?" She could hardly have known that an attempt to escape from an ecclesiastical court was a sin of the deepest dye, and yet when tested with the cunning question whether she would now escape if opportunity offered, she replied that if the door was opened she would walk out; she would try it only to see if the Lord so willed it. When an insidious offer was made to her to have a great procession to entreat G.o.d to bring her to the proper frame of mind, she quietly replied that she wished all good Catholics would pray for her.

When threatened with torture, and told that the executioner was at hand to administer it, she simply said, "If you extort avowals from me by pain I will maintain that they are the result of violence." Thus alternating the horrors of her dungeon with the clamors of the examination-room, where perhaps a dozen eager questioners would bait her at once, she never faltered through all those weary weeks.[384]

In this she was sustained by the state of habitual spiritual exaltation resulting from the daily and nightly visions with which she was favored, and the unalterable conviction that she was the chosen of the Lord, under whose inspiration she acted and whose will she was prepared to endure with resignation. In her prison her ecstatic raptures seem to have become more frequent than ever. Her heavenly visitants came at her call, and solved her difficulties. Frequently she refused to answer questions until she could consult her Voices and learn whether she was permitted to reveal what was wanted, and then, at a subsequent hearing, she would say that she had received permission. The responses evidently sometimes varied with her moods. She would be told that she would be delivered with triumph, and then again be urged not to mind her martyrdom, for she would reach paradise. When she reported this she was cunningly asked if she felt a.s.sured of salvation, and on her saying that she was as certain of heaven as if she was already there, she was led on with a question whether she held that she could not commit mortal sin.

Instinctively she drew back from the dangerous ground--"I know nothing about it; I depend on the Lord."[385]

Finally, on one important point her judges succeeded in entrapping her.

She was warned that if she had done anything contrary to the faith she must submit herself to the determination of the Church. To her the Church was represented by Cauchon and his tribunal; to submit to them would be to p.r.o.nounce her whole life a lie, her intercourse with saints and angels an invocation of demons, herself a sorceress worthy of the stake, and only to escape it through the infinite mercy of her persecutors. She offered to submit to G.o.d and the saints, but this, she was told, was the Church triumphant in heaven, and she must submit to the Church militant on earth, else she was a heretic, to be inevitably abandoned to the secular arm for burning. Taking advantage of her ignorance, the matter was pressed upon her in the most absolute form.

When asked if she would submit to the pope she could only say, "Take me to him and I will answer to him." At last she was brought to admit that she would submit to the Church, provided it did not command what was impossible; but, when asked to define the impossible, it was to abandon doing what the Lord had commanded, and to revoke what she had a.s.serted as to the truth of her visions. This she would submit only to G.o.d.[386]

The examinations up to March 27 had been merely preparatory. On that day the formal trial commenced by reading to Joan a long series of articles of accusation based upon the information obtained. A lively debate ensued among the experts, but at last it was decided that she must answer them _seriatim_ and on the spot, which she did with her wonted clearness and intrepidity, declining the offer of counsel, which Cauchon proposed to select for her. Sundry further interrogatories followed; then her sickness delayed the proceedings, and on May 12, twelve members of the tribunal a.s.sembled in Pierre Cauchon"s house to determine whether she should be subjected to torture. Fortunately for the reputation of her judges this infamy was spared her. One of them voted in favor of torture to see whether she could be forced to submit to the Church; another, the spy, Nicholas l"Oyseleur, humanely urged it as a useful medicine for her; nine were of opinion either that it was not yet required, or that the case was clear enough without it; Cauchon himself apparently did not vote. Meanwhile a secret junto, selected by Cauchon, had reduced the articles of accusation to twelve, which, though grossly at variance with the truth, were a.s.sumed to have been fully proved or confessed, and these formed the basis of the subsequent deliberations and sentence. We have seen, in the case of Marguerite la Porete, that the Inquisition of Paris, in place of calling an a.s.sembly of experts, submitted to the canonists of the University a written statement of what was a.s.sumed to be proved, and that the opinion rendered on this, although conditioned on its being a true presentation of the case, was equivalent to a verdict. This precedent was followed in the present case. Copies of the articles were addressed to fifty-eight learned experts, in addition to the Chapter of Rouen and the University of Paris, and their opinions were requested by a certain day. Of all those appealed to, the University was by far the most important, and a special mission was despatched to it bearing letters from the royal council and the Bishop of Beauvais. In view of the tendencies of the University this might seem a superfluous precaution, and its adoption shows how slender was the foundation on which the whole prosecution was based. The University went through an elaborate form of deliberation, and caused the faculties of theology and law to draw up its decision, which was adopted May 14 and sent to Rouen.[387]

On May 19 the a.s.sessors were a.s.sembled to hear the report from the University, after which their opinions were taken. Some were in favor of immediate abandonment to the secular arm, which would have been strictly in accordance with the regular inquisitorial proceedings, but probably the violent a.s.sumption that the articles represented truthfully Joan"s admissions was too much for some of the a.s.sessors, and the milder suggestion prevailed that Joan should have another hearing, in which the articles should be read to her, with the decision of the University, and that the verdict should depend upon what she should then say.

Accordingly, on May 23, she was again brought before the tribunal for the purpose. A brief abstract of the doc.u.ment read to her will show, from the triviality of many of the charges and the guilt ascribed to them, how conviction was predetermined. The University, as usual, had guarded itself by conditioning its decision on the basis of the articles being fully proved, but no notice was taken of this, and Joan was addressed as though she had confessed to the articles and had been solemnly condemned.

I. The visions of angels and saints.--These are p.r.o.nounced superst.i.tious and proceeding from evil and diabolical spirits.

II. The sign given to Charles of the crown brought to him by St.